‘Ye are _not_, Francie. I wunna believe’t though yersel say ’t! It’s naething but a dist o’ styte and nonsense ’at’s won in throu the cracks ye got i’ yer heid, fechtin. Ye was aye a daft kin’ o’ a cratur, Francie! Gien onybody ever said it, mak ye speed and get yer health again, and syne ye can shaw him plain ’at he’s a leear.’ ‘But I tell ye, Kirsty, I ran awa!’ ‘I fancy ye wud hae been naething but a muckle idiot gien ye hadna!--Ye didna ley onybody in trouble!--did ye noo?’ ‘No a sowl ’at I ken o’. Na, I didna do that. The fac was--but nae blame to them--they a’ gaed awa and left me my lane, sleepin. I maun hae been terrible tired.’ ‘I telled ye sae!’ cried Kirsty. ‘Jist gang ower the story to me, Francie, and I s’ tell ye whether ye’re a cooard or no. I dinna believe a stime o’ ’t! Ye never was, and never was likly to be a cooard. I s’ be at the boddom o’ ’t wi’ whaever daur threpe me sic a lee!’ But Francis showed such signs of excitement as well as exhaustion, that Kirsty saw she must not let him talk longer. ‘Or I’ll tell ye what!’ she added: ‘--ye’ll tell father and mother and me the haill tale, this verra nicht, or maybe the morn’s mornin. Ye maun hae an egg noo, and a drappy o’ milk--creamy milk, Francie! Ye aye likit that!’ She went and prepared the little meal, and after taking it he went to sleep. In the evening, with the help of their questioning, he told them everything he could recall from the moment he woke to find the place abandoned, not omitting his terrors on the way, until he overtook the rear of the garrison. ‘I dinna won’er ye was fleyt, Francie,’ said Kirsty. ‘I wud hae been fleyt mysel, wantin my swoord, and kennin nae God to trust til! Ye maun learn to ken _him_, Francie, and syne ye’ll be feart at naething!’ After that, his memory was only of utterly confused shapes, many of which must have been fancies. The only things he could report were the conviction pervading them all that he had disgraced himself, and the consciousness that everyone treated him as a deserter, and gave him the cold shoulder. His next recollection was of coming home to, or rather finding himself with his mother, who, the moment she saw him, flew into a rage, struck him in the face, and called him coward. She must have taken him, he thought, to some place where there were people about him who would not let him alone, but he could remember nothing more until he found himself creeping into a hole which he seemed to know, thinking he was a fox with the hounds after him. ‘What’s my claes like, Kirsty?’ he asked at this point. ‘They war no that gran’,’ answered Kirsty, her eyes smarting with the coming tears; ‘but ye’ll ne’er see a stick (_stitch_) o’ them again: I pat them awa.’ ‘What w’y ’ill I win up, wantin them?’ he rejoined, with a tremor of anxiety in his voice. ‘We’ll see aboot that, time eneuch,’ answered Kirsty.